


Kicking My Heels

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6749416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/">comment_fic</a> prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, Band AU". In which Ronon convinces John to play a gig with his old high school band. Title from the Tyler Hilton song</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicking My Heels

“Sheppard Industries, this is John. How may I help you?” John adjusted his headset and glared up at Ronon, who was leaning on the desk and positively radiating amusement while John typed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sheppard is unavailable at the moment. May I take a message? All right. I’ll let him know you called. Again. Have a good day.” He tapped the button on the headset and took a deep breath. “What? It’s a job while I go through school. Some of us didn’t get into college on epic athletic scholarships.”

Ronon raised his eyebrows; John hadn’t needed the track scholarship, because he was 'so damn smart'. As far as John’s father was concerned, John blowing out his knee on his last cross-country race senior year had been a blessing, because now John’s dreams of joining the Air Force were permanently shattered, and he could do what he was supposed to do, join the family business. And he was going to join the family business in the vaunted Sheppard tradition, start from the bottom and work his way up. He’d started in the mail room when he was sixteen. Now that he was eighteen he’d been promoted to general receptionist instead of going to ROTC.

“Look, you’re always off work by five,” Ronon said. “Ford bailed on us, took off to join the Marines, and our first big gig is in two weeks. We need a good guitarist. You’re the best guitarist I know.”

“I know how to play zero of your songs.” John pressed his lips into a thin line.

“You mean you’ve listened to all of them and know all of the lyrics and chord progressions but you wouldn’t do the solos the way Ford does them.”

John slid his gaze away. “Two weeks isn’t enough for me to get up to speed for a three-hour gig.”

“We play some covers - covers you know very well.” Ronon leaned in, lowered his voice. “Come _on_ , John. Rodney will be there.”

“Low blow,” John hissed. Rodney McKay was the band’s songwriter, but he refused to perform with them. His girlfriend, Jennifer Keller, was the keyboardist instead.

“Don’t make me send Teyla after you.”

Teyla was the drummer. She could do more than play the drums with a pair of sticks. John had seen the aftermath of that guy who’d tried to jump her on the way back from band practice one time sophomore year.

“Look, we just need a pinch hitter till we can audition a real replacement for Ford,” Ronon said. “C’mon. For old times’ sake.”

John had played with the band for all of freshman and sophomore year before his father put a stop to his musical ambitions. Without his mother there to act as a buffer, John had had no choice but to give all his band gear away (to Ronon, for safekeeping) and keep his one acoustic guitar as nothing more than a pastime.

“Fine,” John said. “I’ll be by after work tonight. I have my electric acoustic, but I’d need a real electric.”

“I have an electric,” Ronon said. He still had all of John’s old gear, he meant.

“Fine. Now go, get out of here before someone calls security. You look like -”

“A musician?” Ronon grinned, turned, and sauntered out of the lobby, his electric bass strapped to his back, gunmetal gray and gleaming.

That night, John changed into jeans and an old Johnny Cash t-shirt and showed up at Ronon’s garage. Ronon’s grandfather was basically deaf, and during band practice he took out his hearing aid and ‘left the kids to their own devices’.

Teyla was doing warm-up fills while Ronon and Jennifer checked over the sound. John ducked into the garage and came up short at the sight of Rodney - blond, blue-eyed, unfairly gorgeous - slouched behind the soundboard, flicking switches with his long, dexterous hands. Rodney was a damn good pianist in his own right, but he had a thing about performing, so Jennifer played in the band. Rodney, John knew, hated him. He was pretty sure it was because he’d smiled wrong at Jennifer one time or something freshman year, and the one time he’d tried to apologize Rodney had bitten his head off, and the rest of high school had been frosty silence in every AP math and science class John dared to take.

“All right,” Ronon said, “let’s get started.”

Rodney flicked his gaze at John, and the corners of his mouth turned down. “You couldn’t find anyone else?”

“Not on such short notice,” Ronon said.

They warmed up with Play That Funky Music, which mostly depended on Teyla and Ronon keeping the backbone of the beat. Teyla took lead vocals on most songs, which meant they sometimes had to transpose into a key she could handle, but she had a great voice. John was pretty rusty on picking up the harmonies, and if he wasn’t sure of his part, he kept silent, because quiet was better than off-key.

“That was a bit of a pancake,” Jennifer said, laughing, “but it’s good to have a guitarist again.”

“The thing about pancakes,” John said, “is you throw the first one out. What should we do next?”

“Comfortably Numb,” Rodney said. “The acoustics on the guitar solo are tricky, and I need to hear how this guitarist does it.”

John winced. Rodney wouldn’t even say his name. Johnny Cash was his favorite to play, though he didn’t have the deep voice to pull it off - that was all Ronon. But Pink Floyd was something he could do. He’d played Comfortably Numb and Wish You Were Here a few times too many in the months after his mother died.

Jennifer sang the part of the doctor - only fitting, because she was a pre-med major - and Teyla sang the part of Pink, and John - John reopened old wounds to bleed into the guitar solos.

When the song was finished, fading down to a final chord and Teyla doing a cymbal roll, John was breathing hard. He hadn’t played that song in a long time, not like that, not with his electric guitar wailing under his fingers like that.

Rodney was staring at him fixedly, and if looks could kill - John looked away.

Rodney stood up, beckoned for Teyla. “Can I have a word?”

Teyla nodded, laid her sticks on the snare, and stepped out from behind the drums. Rodney dragged her out of the garage and all the way to the street to have a conversation that was mostly Rodney waving his hands angrily and Teyla making placating motions.

Ronon huffed and rolled his eyes, played a walking bass line to entertain himself.

Jennifer darted a glance at John, apologetic. “It’s probably something about the sound. Rodney’s very particular about the sound.” 

“I’m sure,” John murmured.

When Rodney and Teyla returned, Rodney resumed his place behind the soundboard, Teyla went back to the drums, and they played on. Since this was John’s first night, they only practiced the popular covers and their popular originals, to make sure John knew which those were and how the band had re-arranged them. Jennifer, to John’s surprise, could do a mean Nicki Minaj for the band’s cover of Super Bass. And Ronon...sang lead on their cover of Poker Face.

“You play as well as I remember,” Jennifer said, patting John on the shoulder. He paused in his helping Ronon put up the amps so cars could be parked in the garage again. “It’s good to have you back, even if it’s only for a while.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s fun to be back. Only for a while.”

She smiled at him, then turned and went to help Rodney pack up her keyboard. They left the garage, hand-in-hand.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Ronon said, “I can’t believe you’re still crushing on him. Nancy Heywood was all over you senior year, and you -”

“Strung her along so I had a prom date. I know. I’m a bastard.” John sighed and closed his eyes. Rodney McKay was equally a bastard, with his sharp wit and sharper tongue and the way he’d sharpened it freely on John for years (and John was some kind of masochist, playing stupid just to goad Rodney into letting loose on him, because negative attention was better than no attention).

“But as long as you keep playing guitar like that, I don’t care who you crush on.” Ronon clapped him on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow night.”

So John practiced with the band every night except for the night before the gig itself, when the band - plus Rodney - sat around and bickered over the set list.

“Each of us gets to do a solo. That is always how it has been,” Teyla said, ever the diplomat. “Jennifer, what do you wish to play?”

“Existentialism on Prom Night,” she said. “It’s mostly piano.”

“Also slower, and a little more melancholy,” John pointed out. “In the middle of a set, then, before we ramp up the energy?” He glanced at Ronon, who nodded, as did Jennifer.

Teyla wrote it down in her notebook. “Ronon?”

“Bass solos are boring,” he said, “but I can also play the guitar. So...how about some Chili Peppers? I can do Under the Bridge.”

“As long as it’s not right next to the cover of Give it Away,” Jennifer said.

Teyla scanned the list. “Here. It is also a slower and softer piece. In the middle of the second set. John?”

He elbowed Ronon. “Thanks for stealing my jam. If you’re going to be like that, then give me Swing Life Away. A little more upbeat, but pretty decidedly acoustic. What about you, Teyla? Gonna do a drum solo?”

“No, I shall sing. Perhaps Hallelujah. That is always a popular choice.”

“What’s with all the melancholy?” John asked.

“Sometimes we need to slow it down,” Ronon said. “Plus if they’re all depressed, they’ll order more drinks. We’re playing in a bar.”

“Point.” John nodded. “What are we opening with?”

“Theme from the Chalets,” Ronon said, and John raised his eyebrows.

“You’re still doing that one?” Of course they were doing that one. It was a chance to insult each other onstage. “What are we closing with?”

“The Four Chord Song,” Ronon said, and John groaned, because it was the hardest, having to weave that many songs together, and timing on the lyrical cues was so critical. But it was one audiences always loved, so he’d buckle down and do it.

“If I may,” Rodney interjected, and John froze. The others turned to him. John lowered his gaze but turned vaguely in Rodney’s direction, hyperaware of Rodney’s gaze on him.

“Yes, everyone has a solo, but not everyone sings lead in every set. In fact, John doesn’t sing lead in any of the sets besides his designated solo, and Ford used to sing at least one per set. I think it would build better audience rapport, if John sang lead on at least one song per set.”

John lifted his head, surprised. Rodney had actually said his name. “I don’t have the kind of voice Ford has -”

“For some songs you don’t need his voice,” Rodney said. “Here. Prince Charming of Nothing. And - Kicking My Heels.” He pointed to Teyla's notebook. “Also Gone Away. And finally - Wish You Were Here. There. See. One in each set.”

“You okay with that?” Ronon asked.

Two originals, two covers. John swallowed hard. Rodney had written both originals, music and lyrics. But John knew them by heart. So he was pleased when his voice was steady as he said, “Sure.”

*

John had to put in half a day in the office on Saturday, because everyone at Sheppard Industries was expected to go the extra mile, and Betty, his father’s personal secretary, noted that he looked nervous and excited.

“Big date?” she asked.

He smiled and ducked his head, let her think what she wanted, because if Patrick Sheppard got word that John was playing with the Space Monkeys again (they’d talked endlessly about changing the name and never got around to it), there would be hell to pay.

He got to the bar - Duffy’s, a college bar that had some vague Irish themes, run by the unflappable Jack O’Neill and his oddly perfect nerdy boyfriend Daniel - and headed around the alley to the back, where they were unloading their gear out of the back of Teyla’s old van, affectionately named the Puddle Jumper. Rodney was there as well - he was always there, focusing mostly on helping Jennifer but also on coddling his precious soundboard, which he’d built and programmed himself - and John was careful not to get in his way.

The stage was small, tucked into the corner just to the right of the front door. A small dance floor had been cleared in front of the stage. John took a deep breath. He’d never played a real gig before, not beyond a few high school parties. And he was kind of terrified.

But then Ronon ruffled his hair and shoved him up onto the stage, and it was show time.

John couldn’t help but scan the faces in the audience that he could see, hoping and praying he didn’t see his brother. Duffy’s wasn’t the kind of place a good Sheppard Man would frequent, and Dave was doing his best to be a good Sheppard Man, so chances of John being recognized were...slim.

And then he saw Rodney, sitting down at the very front, hands on the soundboard, watching him, and he had to swallow and look away.

The Theme from the Chalets was a great choice for an opening number, because it was lighthearted and fun, Teyla and Jennifer mocking Ronon and John, and the boys mocking the girls right back. It was upbeat enough that some people got up and danced, even though it was only nine o’clock and people were still mostly sober. The humor and laughing helped John loosen up, shake out his limbs, and just dive into every song that came after. He and Ronon pretended to be Jennifer’s go-go dancers during Super Bass, and he and Jennifer were Ronon’s back-up dancers during Poker Face. And then came John’s first lead, Prince Charming of Nothing, one of Rodney’s songs.

Given how often Ronon had jokingly called John ‘Prince Charming’ in high school, the song was oddly fitting, and John had tried not to read too much into the title of the song the first time he heard it.

The show was kind of awesome. John was pretty sure he nailed all his guitar solos, and he hammed it up for the crowd whenever he could. He nailed his own vocal leads, too, and was damn pleased with how Kicking My Heels came out. He was most proud, however, of his guitar solo on Rodney’s arrangement of Pink Floyd’s Learning to Fly (and his ability to help with the harmonies over Ronon’s smoky vocals).

The last number of the night was a huge success, partially because people were pretty inebriated and willing to sing along by that point, and partially because it was a great song, a medley mish-mash of a bunch of popular songs that everyone knew, and partially because the energy in the room built with each new song, and by the end of it, everyone in the room was singing along, cheering, and this, this was what had been missing from John’s life since the day he’d surrendered all his musical gear to Ronon and locked away his stacks and stacks of sheet music.

When the song ended, the audience launched to its feet, hollering and cheering raucously. John strummed wildly on his guitar, grinning, and Teyla crashed on the cymbals, and John felt like he was flying.

He crashed abruptly back to Earth when Rodney hopped up on the stage and yanked Jennifer into a kiss (that made the audience cheer louder), and John had to get out, needed fresh air, he’d barely been outside all night -

He was halfway to the door when a hand came down on his arm.

“You’re John, right? The guitarist?”

John blinked at the bald, bespectacled little man who was wearing a button-down shirt and slacks and was several decades too old for the bar’s typical clientele.

“Temporary guitarist,” he said.

“They better keep you on as the permanent guitarist,” the man said. “The chemistry the four of you have is electric. And that guitar solo on Learning to Fly? Musical genius.” He pressed a business card into John’s hand. “If you’re interested in representation and taking steps toward a recording contract, call me.”

And then the little man was gone, and John was staring down at his business card. Richard Woolsey, Atlantis Representation.

“What was that all about?” Jennifer asked, coming toward him, Rodney pressed close to her side.

John handed her the card. “I need some air. I’ll be back to break down the gear in a bit.” And he hurried outside.

As soon as he was in the cool air, he sank against the brick wall, took several deep breaths.

“You’re really good, you know. I thought it was a shame that you stopped playing with them.”

John whipped around, horrified. Dave leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, wearing jeans and a t-shirt like he hadn’t since he turned sixteen.

“Dad said -”

“Dad said a lot of things after Mom died. Take him with a grain of salt.” Dave smiled at him, crooked and sad, just like Mom’s smile, and John’s throat closed. Dave patted him on the shoulder and straightened up. “I’ll tell Betty your date was with a hot blond.” And he turned and walked away.

John watched him go and wondered what the hell had just happened to his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Song credits:  
> Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry  
> Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd  
> Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd  
> Super Bass - Nicki Minaj  
> Poker Face - Lady Gaga  
> Existentialism On Prom Night - Straylight Run  
> Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers  
> Give it Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers  
> Swing Life Away - Rise Against  
> Theme from the Chalets - The Chalets  
> Four Chord Song - Axis of Awesome  
> Prince Charming of Nothing - Tyler Hilton  
> Kicking My Heels - Tyler Hilton  
> Gone Away - The Offspring  
> Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd


End file.
